About the Award

The Internationaler Literaturpreis moves literary practices and processes of worldwide contemporary literatures into the spotlight. What forms does contemporary storytelling take on? Which reproductions and relations of words and realities does translation set into motion? Under what conditions do people imagine and think, write, translate, publish and read? How does present-day writing process the complexities and distortions that confront mobile and relentlessly self-observing societies? Who writes the text in which the world is present?

The Internationaler Literaturpreis has been awarded annually since 2009 by Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Stiftung Elementarteilchen. The award of €35,000 (€20,000 for the author and €15,000 for the translator) honors an outstanding work of contemporary international literature that has been translated into German for the first time. The award thus acknowledges the original work and its translation.

Publishers that produce German translations of international fiction can submit their books for the award. In a multi-stage process, an independent jury will first create a shortlist of six titles from all entries and, in a second stage, choose the award winners.

Since 2017, the award has been additionally flanked by the residency program of the Literarische Colloquium Berlin (LCB), where the awardee duo will present their latest work during the author residency the following year. The space created by the award for thoughts and conversations will be enhanced on the web by the Epitext blog. It contains interviews, essays and notes on the current award happenings as well as articles on literature and translation.

Once the shortlist is announced the current program for the year will be available at hkw.de/literaturpreis.

Contact

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